We've recently been following the progress of the Arctic Joule as her crew attempt to row through the Northwest Passage, and now comes news of another expedition across the Arctic, this time powered by the wind.

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I first met Kevin Vallely in a rather unusual location for both of us. The British Ambassador's residence in Oslo! We were both holding a small glass of red wine, and started talking about Arctic sea ice. We agreed it was disappearing quickly, and Kevin assured me that he "wasn't crazy enough to try and walk to the North Pole" this year. He did however explain to me a bit more about his plan to row through the Northwest Passage, which he had earlier explained to the delegates attending the Economist Arctic Summit. He assured me that he and three companions would attempt to row through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in "the last world first!". They were planning to start on July 1st 2013, rowing in teams of two for 24 hours a day, for about 75 days.

More on The Arctic Joule Races Towards the Beaufort Sea

In the first of an occasional series under the "Shock News" banner we reveal how to upset a global warming sceptic in three easy stages.

1. Smell something fishy about a headline that states "New Ice At The North Pole" on July 2nd 2013 and examine "the evidence" from arctic.io presented to substantiate this assertion:

More on How to Upset a Global Warming Sceptic

My headline for today paraphrases matters only slightly. The exact words of Professor Stephen Belcher, head of the Met Office's Hadley Centre, were as follows:

We think that these are really some cutting edge science questions to be addressed here. No-one in the world can answer these questions, it's really important to emphasise.

as you can discover for yourself if you skip straight to about 4 minutues 35 seconds into the following video:

More on Met Office Says "No-one in the World" Can Explain Weird Weather

The Australian Climate Commission have just released two reports on climate change and the measures being taken around the world to address it. The first is entitled "The Critical Decade: Extreme Weather". Our headline covers the sort of extreme weather we're most familiar here in South West England, but the Climate Commission present a long list of other examples of recent extreme weather in Australia:

More on Australian Climate Commission Report That "Heavy Rainfall Has Increased Globally"

Why should we care about abrupt climate change in the Arctic? Because climate change in the Arctic leads to climate change outside the Arctic, and in particular here in South West England!

More on Abrupt Climate Change in the Arctic: Why Should We Care?

The set of cracks in the Arctic sea ice across the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas that we showed three days ago have now refrozen, and some new ones have opened up nearer the north coast of Alaska. However whilst that has been going on another set of "cracks" over on the Russian side of the Arctic have been growing ever wider. Here's how the Laptev Sea looks from space this morning:

More on Has The Laptev Sea Ice Started Melting?

The ice covering the Beaufort Sea has already found itself split by fractures many hundreds of miles long more than once this year. Now it is cracking at the seams once again, as this picture taken by the Terra satellite yesterday reveals:

More on Beaufort Sea Ice Cracks Once More

NASA have recently been flying low over the sea ice in the Arctic on their latest IceBridge mission, measuring its thickness and recording a variety of images too, amongst other things.  In our All Fools' Day quiz here on econnexus.org.uk we took a close look at the sea ice around the Disko Bay area of Western Greenland. One reason for doing that was because, as Julia Slingo who is chief scientist at the UK's Met Office pointed out only yesterday:

More on NASA Chasing Calving Ice in Western Greenland

According to ITV News this evening:

The Met Office is calling a meeting of top scientists to look at the "urgent" question of whether the warming of the Arctic is affecting UK weather.

In an interview with ITV Professor Julia Slingo OBE, chief scientist at the United Kingdom's Met Office has been commenting on the evident changes in the Great British Climate over the last few years. Julia told ITV (amongst other things) that:

More on Met Office Admit "Our Climate Is Being Disrupted by the Warming of the Arctic"